


tell the survivors

by leonhardts



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/F, F/M, Red Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:43:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonhardts/pseuds/leonhardts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your back aches with the weight of phantom wings, and you bleed red for a dead girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell the survivors

You wake up with blood on your brow, can smell it in the cracks under your nails, dark and blue and stagnant,  _old_.

You spend most of your nights staring at the same solid spot of ceiling, think out all the other possibilities of that night, wonder if the ghost of yourself is somewhere in a dream bubble, blissful unaware. You wonder if the thief of light is somewhere stealing someone else's, wonder if she would be able to find any more inside of you to take.

It's easy to get lost in the wandering halls of the meteor. You find yourself less aware of your surroundings as each day/night/day slowly passes.

Karkat asks you what's wrong with his eyebrows knitted, Gamzee grins like he knows all your secrets from his shadows, and you want to laugh, cackle and spit in their faces because  _as if they could know what it feels like to see the life drain out of the eyes of the only person you've ever known who could classify as_ _alive_ .

It takes a while to slip far enough down the slippery precipice of your failing dignity, but eventually you wind up with fingernails dug into the juggalo's gray skin, unnatural pallor from all his days spent hiding from the rest of your group. He tells you he was waiting for you, and you don't even have the energy to figure out what he means by it, you're fucking tired of his shit, so you shut him up with your teeth and bites down his long neck.

You wake up and your skin itches like you've got fleas and you wouldn't even be surprised, the fucker.

Dave doesn't quite meet your blank gaze when you join him after, obvious teal bruises crisscrossing your throat, fingers sticky with faygo and purple fluid you'd be afraid to sniff at.

You sigh and sit beside the mayor, pretend you don't notice Dave's wince when you hiss with pain as you lower your sore body down.

Dave doesn't come back the next time you're there, isn't there the next day either, and when you finally catch him, talking in hushed tones with Karkat, you snap at him. He snaps right back, anger in the tenseness surrounding his whole body, eyes sharp even through your dimmed senses.

"I told you I wasn't down for that stupid quadrilateral romantic bullshit, Terezi," and you might step back, because you were some semblance of flushed for this secretly gentle boy but he's got his hands clenched in fists by his sides now and Karkat is quiet for once in his whole goddamn life behind him.

You snort, turn on your heel, throw the words, "Tell me again when you're not busy up Vantas's nook, you pale-addled mother _fucking_ hypocrite," over your shoulder. You don't bother waiting for a response.

Your sister's eyes glittered when you stabbed her through the chest, a smile on her wide lips because she knew, she knew, and you were only ever a pawn of her fate.

The tip of your cane is never the same cast of glinting silver as it used to be.

The meteor doesn't really get any brighter during the day, so you sleep whenever you want, wake up at odd times of the 'night,' no one around to notice if you sleep three quarters of the time anyway.

Her eyes are white in your dreams, and you bleed teal tears for the fact they will never reach the bright color of her nails, like her symbol emblazoned with such arrogant pride, the shade of spilled blood across the scene of a murder.

You loved her and you're breaking, splintering from the inside, you loved her,  _you_ love _her_ , red bleeding out of your chest, and his mouth tastes like blue even when it leaves lavender stains on your teeth.

Aranea's winding persuasions get more difficult to turn down. You're not sure why you've rejected sight for so long anyway. Some regrettable belief in your own heroics probably, bullshit excuses to keep yourself from actually being normal. Fear of losing your particularity, for the worry that you'd be ordinary without it.

You were always dimmer than her anyway.

Your first real view of the world is gray and cold, of the grimy tiles below your quivering limbs, and it hurts, that goddamn bitch didn't tell you it'd _hurt_ this much to _see_.

Lifting yourself from the floor on shaking legs, you stumble through too bright colors, all drab whites and blacks, but still too bright, too much for your fragile child's sight, and you wonder what your sister will think of the newfound yellows in your eyes.

Karkat corners you one night, after his supposed 'intervention' disaster. He tells you you have to stop, that it's killing you, and it's funny because _of course it is, you killed your best friend, of course it's fucking killing you, how could it_ not _be_.

His tears are faded cherry drops and you'd enjoy the novel sight more if you weren't busy trying to keep down the bile in your throat.

Your knight of blood kisses you like you're dying, like he can breathe life into your shuddering lungs, and you know it wasn't a sweep ago that you wanted this, you wanted _him_ , his warm brightness, his hapless heroism. You wanted this but his lips are warm and they are the wrong shade of blue even in the cold of space.

He holds your hand and you try to smile but it feels like a grimace and the hold on your throat gets tighter, it's hard to breathe around these days.

It gets harder.

You drink yourself into stupors, giggle with Rose over idiotic things, simplistic thoughts are easier than complex ones, and she whispers one night that she feels like she's only ever failed everyone she's loved, and you could vomit from the relief of knowing you are not the only one lost here.

Your clown is only a distraction now, even his raking nails across your back, his horrid, rotting breath on your neck makes you gag, the purple-black bruises you leave on his shoulders feel more like marks of your guilt rather than penance.

 He reeks like he hasn't washed in weeks and it's probably true. He whispers filthy things in your ears but you're only half-awake, the greater, more-aware part of yourself caught somewhere in limbo with a girl with spiked nails and tangled hair.

Dave looks at you like you're broken when he looks at you at all, like he's disgusted with you, and when Karkat tells you he's only worried, fingers pressed desperate against yours; you feel like laughing, so you do.

He pulls back from you, eyes narrowed with hurt, something like, like disappoin--

You walk away before he can say anything more, hands curled into loose fists so you can dig your overgrown nails into the skin of your palms to make sure your bloodpusher is still functioning.

\--

She waits for you, your precious hero of light. 

Her eyes are gone, blank slate clean. She waits for you in dreams, you only ever rest when you're asleep and with her; she curls her fingers around greasy locks of your hair, strokes the fragile skin over your shoulderblades, tells you it's all okay. Presses kisses to your forehead, whispers she forgives you, _all's in the past, sis, listen_.

She tells you to open your eyes, hands on either side of your gaunt face, and you do.

Her own eyes light up somehow, through their fake half-remembered yellowbluewhite; she grins and runs her thumbs over your cheekbones, fangs revealed sharp against painted navy, and you think you want to _taste them_ in some vague part of your brain.

She leans in suddenly, happiness lit through every piece of her. "All is in the past, Terezi, I told you," she says, and she is very suddenly very near you, ghosts of her breath on your lips.

"Oh, sister, you're beautiful," she mumbles against your mouth and you don't even have the strength to kiss back.

Every part of you aches for sleep, for real rest, for warm sopor, for your home, for the pink leaves and the yellow sunshine that flooded across your bedroom floor.

Vriska's bony elbows and steady breathing will have to do instead.


End file.
